O' Christmas Tree, O' Christmas Tree...

With most of our belongings in storage awaiting the official move into a house again, we were missing a crucial piece of the festive feeling of Christmas season....the TREE!  There is always a debate over real vs fake and I'll just nip that in the bud by saying as much as I LOVE the real trees and going to a farm and cutting our own as a family like I did growing up most years, I cannot stand the bumps and itches that I get all over my arms as I put the lights on or the ornaments getting hung.  Plus I've seen enough dog vomit in my family history with pine needles in it to want to avoid that in the future too.

So with my lovely pre-lit fake being in storage along with all of our ornaments and my personal favorite tree topper, well, we had to figure out something else for the apartment life this season.  The plus side to the timing of figuring this out--WE HAVE A CLOSE DATE on our house!!!  We know which house we are buying and we have gone through all the hassle of the short sale and we now have a date of which we will be owners of said house.  This means I was able to make plans for next year's holiday season decorating with the apartment solution for this season!  Meet the beginnings of my upstairs tree (read color coordinated):

The lights are red and white twined together (yes, I made my husband tangle lights rather than untangle them) so that nearly every white is paired with a red.  The santa hat topper and the tote bottom were inspired--okay, taken-- straight from a Pin which will lead you to here.  For this year I have red bells, silver icicles and a few Poinsettas on the tree.  I'll wait for some good sales to collect some other red, white and silver ornaments (minus any glitter) to fill it in for next year.

When do you put up the tree?